


Coming Back

by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Trauma, Grief, Hurt, M/M, References to Suicide, bereavement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden/pseuds/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well what did Sherlock expect when he came back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John Watson’s first coherent thought, and it came very quickly, after Sherlock came back from the dead was: I can’t do that again and he’ll make me. He won’t be careful and one day there’ll be another knock at the door, and another phone call, and Lestrade or some other poor sod breaking the news and another funeral to arrange and I can’t do that again. And so he walked up to the man shyly smiling at him from across the waiting room at the surgery, punched him in the gut and then again in the mouth as he went down and then walked out and hailed a cab.

Sherlock had to ask Mycroft in the end where John had gone. Mycroft correctly interpreted this as a measure of his brother’s desperation. Mycroft knew of course, London has a large number of CCTV cameras and Mycroft had some say as to where they were installed, but at first he refused to share the information. “I told you how he would react, how can it be that I knew that and you didn’t?” he asked. After Sherlock swore at him, he asked the question again, silently demanding an answer. Sherlock’s answer came after seven minutes and forty-two seconds,

“I convinced myself he didn’t really care.”

“A grave miscalculation,” Mycroft replied.

“I know that now.” So Mycroft told him where John had gone and it hurt far more than the quick one-two had. This was the first moment he began to realise what he had done.

He went to the small cemetery, to find John. Sherlock could see him sat hunched into himself on a bench in the small garden of remembrance and that was the moment when he realised that he hadn’t even left John a grave he could visit, that he couldn’t undo what he had done. For a moment he knew the urge to walk away, to leave John with the ‘new normal’ he’d created on his own but Sherlock knew that he had to try to put things right.

John stood up as he approached and Sherlock braced himself to be thumped again. It was a surprise when John, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring straight at him just said,

“Hello.”

Sherlock approached closer,

“Hello,” he replied, “How…” but John interrupted him,

“Don’t even think about asking me how I’ve been, I might tell you and I’m quite sure that you don’t want to know.” And then it was like an ice wall collapsing in a spring thaw, everything came out, not a clear flood but everything that the winter had stored up, the muck and the debris and the decay all in one sudden burst,

“You bastard, you know I came here every day at the start? Even though there was nothing of you here it was somewhere to be with you and everyone, Harry, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, god, even Anderson and Donovan visited trying to make sure I was going to be alright and they kept coming even when it ran into years, even when I swore at them and cursed them. Every few weeks one or other of them would come round to the flat and offer to help me clear up your things. I should have known that something was rotten because Mycroft didn’t, god I’m stupid! He knew didn’t he? Mycroft knew.” Tears were running down John’s face mixing with snot and choking him into coughing fits from time to time, but he continued as if he didn’t even notice. “And I didn’t let them, I wouldn’t let them help. I wouldn’t let them, sometimes I didn’t even manage polite, I didn’t want to lose anything more of you; it felt like they were trying to take you away from me and instead it was you, you took yourself away from me. You know I didn’t even launder your sheets, I just very occasionally, when I really couldn’t stand the want of you any more, let myself sleep in your bed to breathe in the scent of you knowing that each time I did I was wearing away some more of you until there would be nothing left. You bastard,” and then he couldn’t continue and he slumped back onto the bench sobbing and choking and coughing.

Sherlock took one step towards John and that was clearly one step too many, as John was instantly on his feet, hands low and defensive, fending Sherlock off. “No, don’t come near me, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear the idea of... I can’t stand the idea that you might not be... Just don’t.” John stopped speaking, still coughing and sniffing and crying and Sherlock could do nothing but stand and watch, forced into silence by John’s reaction. Eventually John made some effort to calm himself, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, coughing and sniffing. He looked up just once from under his brows and then looked away and when he started speaking again Sherlock could barely hear him,

“I wanted to talk to you so much.” It was a simple statement uttered in an almost emotionless voice and if it hadn’t been for the fact that John had been living it Sherlock was sure that he couldn’t have born it. “Not big, earth-shattering things,” John continued looking away, apparently staring at a late blooming rambling rose, “just silly little things. Like the fact that I’d found the upper-left premolar you’d lost from one of your experiments, the little things that happened at work, interesting things on the telly, who won stupid quizzes and competitions, that they think they’ve found neutrinos that can travel faster than light.

“It’s not like I forgot you were gone, I never once forgot and thought ‘I must tell Sherlock’, I never once woke up not remembering and had it wash over me. No the fact that you were gone was the single, central fact of my being, constantly there. It was just that every single time I had something to say I knew the only person I wanted to tell wasn’t there and wasn’t going to be there, was never going to be there again.

“You know I almost went back to my original ‘therapy’ blog, I was going to re-title it, ‘Things I would say to Sherlock (if he hadn’t died)’, then I decided it would just upset the others and make them even more worried and I didn’t want to do that.” Then for the first time, John looked directly at Sherlock, an appraising, auditing survey of his person, taking in a wealth of information, cataloguing and comparing. Sherlock returned the look unflinchingly, head slightly bowed. John eventually looked away, squared his shoulders, turned and walked away.

Sherlock began to follow him, not getting as far as even one step, merely a shift of his weight preparatory to taking a step and then stopped and dropped onto the bench. From sat on the bench he could see the small brass plaques on the low wall. They were all ages from very new (less than three weeks given the degree of patina and the recent weather his analytical brain supplied) to more than ten years old and that thought process led him to focus on the one the right age, the one that John had put there, the one that John had visited for the lack of somewhere else to visit:

Sherlock Holmes  
6-1-76 to 22-11-11  
My friend.

Sherlock did not know how long he sat there and he was aware that people had occasionally come and gone around him, visiting graves, leaving flowers. It wasn’t until someone sat at the other end of the little bench that he really took notice and looked up. A small part of him desperately hoped that it would be John, but a bigger part of him knew it would not be.

“Well, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, “you’ve made a complete balls up of this haven’t you?”


	2. Chapter 2

Lestrade expected an argument when he offered Sherlock somewhere to stay for a day or two while he got himself sorted out but surprisingly Sherlock just said, “Thanks,” and Lestrade wondered if he’d ever heard Sherlock say anything with as little side to it.

“Come on, then,” he replied and stood up. Sherlock staggered as he rose and Lestrade ended up offering his arm to the younger man and Sherlock took it as they walked to the car parked just outside the gates of the cemetery. Lestrade didn’t let on but he was shocked by the frailty of Sherlock; while he had never been other than wiry he was now much closer to emaciated.

In the car Lestrade found himself unnerved by Sherlock’s stillness. He’d never known the man to be still, he was perpetual motion in human form usually. Even when he was lying in wait for a criminal he gave off a palpable vibration.

“Have you eaten at all while you’ve been away?” Lestrade asked when they got back to his flat, trying for humour but not really making it.

“From time to time,” was Sherlock’s distracted and vague answer as he stood in the centre of the room his gaze flitting from item to item even though it was clear that he wasn’t taking anything in.

“Well, you’d better eat something now,” Lestrade replied, walking past Sherlock into the small, spotless kitchen. Sherlock continued to stand in the middle of the room, an automaton whose clockwork had run down, while Lestrade put together scrambled eggs and toast. When he walked back into the room with a plate in either hand he was startled,

“Christ, Sherlock!” he exclaims, “Sit down, will you?” Sherlock looked over at him and the food that he was carrying and then round the room again, like he couldn’t associate ‘sit down’ with the appropriate object. The only other time Lestrade came across someone behaving the same way was a small boy he’d sat with at a crime scene. The poor little bugger had made his own way home from school when no one had collected him and got home to find the door wide open and both his parents dead. The boy had had the same extreme stillness and abstraction.

Sherlock had gone back to standing, motionless and Lestrade went to the table and put the plates down before returning to Sherlock and putting a hand on his shoulder. Sherlock just looked at the hand and Lestrade found that the most worrying thing so far, he knew how much the younger man hated to be touched. Gently Lestrade propelled Sherlock towards the coat rack by the door and gently pulled off his coat and scarf and then walked Sherlock over to the table, sitting him down with one of the plates in front of him.

“Come on,” he encouraged, “get some food inside you.”

As Sherlock ate some of the colour came back into his face and Lestrade could see him reassembling his usual persona and it had never been clearer to the detective that it was all a facade.

“Where were you?” he asked Sherlock when they had both finished eating.

“Oh, lots of places, France, Italy, North Africa, Tibet, a lot of places.”

“So, what, you went backpacking?” Lestrade didn’t even try to keep the incredulity out of his voice and Sherlock was stung into a reaction:

“Don’t be ridiculous, I went where Mycroft had work for me to do, it wasn’t some sort of bloody holiday!”

“What was it then?” The detective let the silence carry on, he’d questioned enough people to know that they mostly couldn’t let a silence go unfilled, though he wasn’t sure it would work on Sherlock.

When Sherlock finally replied it was in a quiet, lost voice, “I was trying to keep him safe.”

“And you get to decide that for him, do you?”

Sherlock sat up straighter and turned to look at Lestrade, “Are you asking me if I get to protect someone I ... care for?” Lestrade was nearly sure he knew what words belonged in that pause and prevarication but he didn’t let on,

“Yes, I’m asking,” he replied, “do you get to make that decision for a rational adult who has feelings of his own?” Sherlock paused and looked down and his reply was almost inaudible,

“I thought I did.”

Lestrade got up and cleared away the plates into the kitchen. Returning he poured each of them a generous measure of scotch and came back to the table, putting one of the glasses down in front of Sherlock.

“What do you think now?” he asked.


	3. Chapter 3

Well at least this time I’ve said goodbye, even if I didn’t say it out loud, thought John Watson as he took his last look, or at least his last look if he had anything to say to it, at Sherlock Holmes and then he looked away, squared his shoulders, turned and walked away, leaving the man he had considered the love of his life standing next to his own memorial.

John realised he was marching, unconsciously slipping into ‘before’, when he noticed he was getting funny looks from the people he passed. He supposed that he must be looking quite frightening to the passersby, obviously military, obviously upset, most people would read that as dangerous and just at the moment they might have a point; John felt like he might do anything. The world was so completely disordered, so completely not as he had thought it was, that he felt he might do anything, anything at all and in the mean time he walked.

It had been dark for hours by the time John found himself back on Baker Street without having made a conscious decision to return home. As he turned the corner onto the street he paused, staring at 221. What if Sherlock was there? Surely he wouldn’t have, surely not; surely he’d made himself clear. But then again it was Sherlock’s flat before it was his. John stood indecisive on the pavement outside Speedy’s, unable to make a decision; a feeling which had been distressingly common in the last two years. Finally the decision was made for him as the door opened and Mrs Hudson peered out.

“Oh, John!” she exclaimed, “there you are, I’ve been that worried, dear! Come in.” John smiled as he stepped over the threshold and it felt like he was using muscles that had atrophied,

“You know then?” he asked,

“Yes, love, he was here this morning. I thought I was having a stroke or hallucinations but he seemed solid enough, just walking in like he’d just been out to the post office...” John interrupted,

“He’s not here, is he?” he demanded, looking nervously up the stairs,

“No, dear he’s not.” Mrs Hudson peered at him trying to discern whether John hoped that he was here or hoped that he wasn’t and in that moment it struck John that he wasn’t completely sure himself, perhaps only 99.9 percent sure, that he never wanted to see the bastard again. I’ll have to watch that he thought because if I had to do this again it would kill me .

“Good.” He replied, firmly with a very small, tight-lipped smile.

“He did leave a couple of bags, upstairs ... do you want me to move them?” she asked.

“No, it’s OK, I’ll get in touch with Mycroft, or just throw them out into the street or something,” John tried the smile again but it was clear that he was not fooling Mrs Hudson.

“Oh, yes, what about Mr Mycroft,” his landlady wondered, “it must have been a shock to him as well,”

“I don’t think it was, actually,” John replied, “I’m pretty sure he knew all along. I should have realised it was unlikely that he would have left all Sherlock’s stuff, but my mind was on other things, I guess.”

“Come in for a cuppa,” she smiled and John suddenly realised that he needed something normal and human,

“Thanks, I will.”

Inside her flat Mrs Hudson busied herself with the process of making proper tea in a proper tea-pot. John knew that she didn’t usually do this and he appreciated her giving him time to compose himself and he was able to give her a much more genuine smile when she came in with the tray of tea things.

“A good cup of tea always makes things better, don’t you find, dear?” John nodded his assent as she poured and handed him the cup,

“Not that I blame you, you know, I don’t know how he could do that to you, I really don’t. It was enough of a shock to me, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you. After we had a funeral and everything and there he was off gallivanting...” John wasn’t sure if Mrs Hudson was trying to get him to defend Sherlock as she went on criticising, but it wasn’t going to happen, what he had done was indefensible, just thinking about it brought an angry flush to John’s face. “...and then he came to the surgery did he?” she asked,

“Yes, yes he did, just walked in.”

“What did you say to him dear?”

“I didn’t say anything at the surgery; I just punched him, probably because I didn’t have a gun. I’m glad I did, probably if I didn’t have bruised knuckles I’d have convinced myself I imagined it all by now and that I really was ready for the funny farm.”

Mrs Hudson paused, minutely adjusting the position of the teapot and her saucer, “But surely you’re glad he’s not dead?” she asked in a quiet voice. It was the first time that John had actually thought about that, the rest of the day his anger had carried him through, a kind of replay of everything he’d been through for the last two years. Now he actually thought, Sherlock’s alive, somewhere in this town he’s breathing and it hit him all over again, all the time I was grieving for him he was alive and doing what he does, I wonder if he realises how close I came to giving up? God I even thought of it as ‘following him’, what a bloody fool. What would that have done to him? Mrs Hudson was still looking at him, waiting for an answer. “Honestly,” he replied, “I’m glad he’s not dead, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I never want to see him again, some things are unforgiveable.”

John picked up his tea and drank the last of it. Putting the cup down he said, “Thanks for the tea, and the sympathy, I think I’ll try and get some rest now,” and he stood up to leave. Mrs Hudson stood up and went to let him out,

“Just remember, dear, forgiveness isn’t something you do for the other person, it’s something you do for yourself.”


	4. Chapter 4

When John Watson decided that he wanted to speak to Mycroft Holmes he went and stood outside 221 Baker Street and stared up at the nearest CCTV camera, fixedly, almost unblinking despite the steady drizzle. Ten minutes later a luxurious but understated black car drew up to the kerb and John got in. As he had expected (not)Anthea was sat at the far side of the long back seat and just as usual she was apparently focused on only her Blackberry.

“I want to talk to your boss.” John stated.

“I know.” She replied as the car pulled away.

John did not bother to try and memorise the route the car took; he knew two things, he could always get in touch with Mycroft as he had that morning and he very much doubted he would ever want to speak to the man again. Although he gazed out of the window he took in nothing of his surroundings other than the shine of the car lights on the wet asphalt. Instead he spent the journey trying to work out what he would say and wondering if he could manage to speak to Mycroft without becoming violent.

The car approached the tin-shed warehouse at a steady speed and the driver did not even slow as the doors opened, ‘as if by magic’ John thought, and instead braked to a halt a few yards into the echoing, empty space. When the car stopped neither Anthea nor the driver made any move but John opened the door and climbed out; he walked two paces from the car, turned away from the now closing warehouse door and stood, hands behind his back, ‘at ease’, head and chin up.

John didn’t look to see where Mycroft came from he just straightened as the man approached, not quite bringing himself to attention, merely moving his arms to his sides and to Mycroft’s all seeing glance tensing every muscle.

“Good Evening, John,” Mycroft noticed the barely perceptible flinch that his use of John’s first name produced and amended, “Dr Watson, how can I be of assistance?”

“I just want to clarify a few things.” John replied.

“Of course.”

“You knew all along that Sherlock was alive, correct?”

“Not quite all along, but yes.”

“In fact, you helped him to do what he did, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why did he leave? Why did he wish it to appear that he had died? Why did I help him? Why didn’t I stop him?”

“Any of them, all of them.”

“There are some of those questions I really cannot answer and some of them I choose not to answer.” At that John bristled,

“And why not?”

“Because some of those answers can come only from Sherlock and it will be for you to decide if you can bring yourself to speak to him for long enough to let him answer your questions. As to the ones which I can and will answer, why don’t we take a seat Dr Watson?” Mycroft gestured to a small table and two chairs further off into the gloom of the building. John gave one quick nod, marched over and sat down. Mycroft followed him at a more sedate pace and took the other chair.

“In the first place,” he began, “I did not know of Sherlock’s decision to ‘disappear’. When he first left I had no more idea of where he was than you did,” Mycroft paused at John’s sceptical expression, “It is of course entirely your affair if you believe what I tell you, Dr Watson, but if your intention was to disbelieve everything I say to you then there really is little point in continuing this conversation,” he paused again, “do you wish me to continue?” John nodded once. “Very well. When you spoke to me about your concerns for Sherlock I mobilised what I am sure you know are considerable resources,” he made a very small gesture taking in the building, the car, Anthea, “and yet I still couldn’t trace my brother. When his effects and the blood were found I assure you that I was as convinced as you were that Sherlock was dead.” Despite himself John could see nothing but truth in Mycroft’s face and he had had no doubts as to the sincerity of Mycroft’s grief at the memorial service they had arranged.

“When did you find out?” John asked and he could see a faint relaxation of tension in Mycroft’s face at being believed.

“A week after the memorial service. As you would expect Sherlock and I had a number of covert methods of communication arranged between us and I still found myself checking them even though I knew,” he paused and swallowed and John could see the brief echoes of old grief, “I thought I knew, that he was dead, and there it was a pre-arranged message on an obscure message board. This particular message was a request to meet at a specific location, to come alone and to trust no one. Although I wondered if it was just an unforeseeable coincidence that some other person had posted that message, I went to the rendezvous, and there was Sherlock.

“It may interest you to know that my reaction to his ‘return from the dead’ was much the same as yours,” Mycroft smiled reminiscently, “it really was a very good black eye.” Despite himself John returned the smile and looked down at his bruised knuckles. Then he looked up and made full eye contact with Mycroft,

“And then?” Mycroft looked away for a second before returning John’s gaze,

“And then he explained his reasons to me.”

“And this is one of the things that you won’t tell me, I gather?”

“That is correct, Dr Watson.” Both men were silent for a long time before John asked a further question.

“Why did he want to see you?”

“Because he needed my help to accomplish the first step of his plans and because he knew that without you his biggest problem would be his self-destructive reaction to boredom. It was because of you that he contacted me; he wanted to be sure that he would survive what he was doing more or less intact. It was always his intention to come back to you.” John visibly flinched at that and both men were silent for the time it took him to return to his stoic calm. Mycroft then continued, “I was able to provide materiel, transport and a number of ‘pretty problems’ to occupy his mind while he waited.”

“I suppose that what he was waiting for is another of the things you won’t tell me?”

“Yes”

“Why?”

“Because irritating, stupid and self-destructive though my brother is he deserves the chance to make you understand what he did. “

“That’s not going to happen,” John said firmly. “It’s not that I’m not glad that he’s not dead, it’s self-preservation. If I let him back into my life then someday I will have to bury him again, possibly for real this time and that would kill me.”

“And how would your situation in that case differ from your situation now?”


	5. Chapter 5

It took Lestrade some time to persuade Sherlock that he not only needed to sleep but that he should take the bed. Lestrade could tell that even that small amount of food had been so unprecedented in Sherlock’s recent past that it had left him tired and sluggish from the unexpected effort of digestion. When Lestrade checked in on the younger man half an hour later he was thoroughly asleep curled in on himself in a protective huddle. _Well one thing’s for sure,_ Lestrade thought, _you certainly haven’t been off having fun, have you?_

The following morning Lestrade made a more substantial breakfast than he did normally and shouted Sherlock out of bed to eat it. When they had eaten Lestrade cleared away and came back with coffee.

“So what did happen then?” he asked

"I know that many people assumed that John and I were 'involved' almost as soon as we began to share lodgings, but in reality we, what's the phrase, got together, very shortly before I left, the night before in fact,"

Lestrade winced visibly and interrupted,

"Sorry, just let me clarify this, you slept with him and left the next morning? You slept with him and then disappeared?" Lestrade paused, sipped the coffee, and then continued, "He didn't hit you hard enough."

"Why?"

"Oh god, you really need me to explain?"

"Yes!"

"OK, so, I guess that up until you he'd largely considered himself straight, yes?" Sherlock nodded in confirmation, "So he meets you and it's very confusing for him because suddenly he finds that he fancies a bloke, and not only a bloke, but a supposedly ‘married to his work’, bloody nearly asexual bloke, and so he keeps it all under wraps for months. Then wonder of wonders it turns out you're interested and he takes what is a bloody big step for him and sleeps with you,"

"It was a big step for me too," Sherlock protested

"Not the same. He makes that monumental a change to his life and less than twenty-four hours later you’ve walked out. He then has three or four days to decide he hates you and that he was a fool and more particularly to feel like a teenager who fell for ‘I love you’ and then he’s told that you’re dead and he’s not just mourning he’s also guilt ridden for thinking you’d deserted him when really you were dead. To be honest I don’t see how you could have made it worse for him.”

“You shouldn’t judge. It was a big deal for me too. I knew I loved him, I knew he loved me. I didn’t know what it was like to be happy until that night and that morning. And John, well John’s supposed to be good at these people things, he was supposed to know how I felt!”

“What by some ancient Jedi mind trick? Because I’d be willing to bet you didn’t tell him.” Lestrade said

“Tell him what?”

“How you felt, you pillock!”

“I couldn’t find the words, or at least any words I found sounded silly and trite and not a whit good enough to convey what I was feeling.” Lestrade was fascinated to see tears glistening in the younger man’s eyes and even though he knew that Sherlock could cry on demand, he sensed that on this occasion if on no other the emotion was genuine.

“You really had it bad, didn’t you?” Lestrade replied with a softened look and he paused to allow Sherlock to compose himself,

“And then...” Lestrade finally prompted,

“And then I got a text message and it said ‘I will burn the heart out of you’. It was what Moriarty said to me that night at the pool. And it all came crashing down on me, now I had a heart to burn and I knew he’d come after John and I couldn’t ... I couldn’t lose him, but I could protect him, I could do that.”

“So you faked your death? Where’d you get the blood?”

“Oh, I’d had it for years in case I needed quantities for an experiment; the rest of it was easily put together. And then I went after Moriarty and dealt with him but there was the rest of his organisation. And while I was dealing with them Mycroft had little jobs for me to do.”

“What made you sure that Moriarty wouldn’t just come after John anyway?”

“That’s easy,” Sherlock replied with a brief flash of his old self, “where was his audience? He wasn’t a man to do anything with no audience. He built in his audience with the stolen voices and he had me and you. If he killed John after I was dead who would reward him with admiration? No the time when John was in danger was between me disappearing and you finding the evidence that I was dead. I began to think you never would.”

“Well, yes but you had a habit of disappearing a couple of years ago and theory had it that you’d just fallen off the wagon in a suitably extravagant way, and now I come to think about it you wouldn’t have wanted the ‘remains’ found too quickly, it wouldn’t have been convincing.” Lestrade looked over to Sherlock seeking confirmation.

“There was an element of that in it, I have to admit,” Sherlock replied. There was a long pause, a break in the conversation that Lestrade felt no need to fill. Finally Sherlock continued in a broken voice, “I have lost him, haven’t I?” and this time there tears flowed unnoticed down his cheeks. “This is worse,” he continued, “if Moriarty had killed him he wouldn’t have gone willingly but now he’s walking away from me because he doesn’t want to be with me. I’ve finally managed to stuff up the only good thing in my life.”

Lestrade did the only thing he could, he got up and pulled the consulting detective into his arms, murmuring comforting, childish words while Sherlock sobbed into him.


	6. Chapter 6

When Greg Lestrade rang him to suggest going out for a drink it was on the tip of John’s tongue to refuse, after all he knew exactly what Greg wanted to talk about; it hadn’t taken a Sherlock Holmes to work out that Sherlock must be staying with him. In the end however, he decided to go and have a drink with the detective and get it over with, whether ‘it’ turned out to be special pleading on Sherlock’s behalf or a bitchfest about Sherlock’s many faults.

Over the last two years John had been out socially a handful of times, none of them recent. After the first shock of losing Sherlock, while he was still kidding himself that it would get better, that he would recover from losing him, John had gone out for drinks with a number of the old gang, Lestrade, Molly Hooper, even Donovan and Anderson. All of the evenings had turned out to be unmitigated disasters; false cheerfulness, a seat that Sherlock wasn’t sitting in and neither was anyone else and finally the crushing, solitary return to the flat.

But he’d tried, he’d really tried. The last time he’d gone out had been just less than a year ago when Sarah had set him up on a blind date, they’d both thought that if John was out with someone who hadn’t even known Sherlock then things would go better. Things had not gone better. Almost all power of speech seemed to have left John and it had been a little bit like he was channelling his friend’s spirit, as he mentally pulled apart everything about his date, judged him wanting and finally left after a strained hour and a half which for each of them had been around eighty-five minutes too long. As a consequence John was nervous not just about Greg wanting to plead Sherlock’s case but also just about going out.

When John got to the pub Greg was outside, smoking which accounted for him not being in the pub and told John immediately that the Detective Inspector was nervous. The fact that John got to within six feet of him before Lestrade noticed him told John that he was also in an abstracted state.

“Evening,” John said,

“Oh, John, hi!” Lestrade quickly removed his cigarette from his mouth, stubbed it out on the sole of his shoe and flicked it into a nearby bin, “shall we go in?”

The interior of the pub was busy but not ridiculously so and John felt it had been a good choice, people wouldn’t easily be able to overhear their conversation but equally neither of them would really be able to justify shouting. Greg went to the bar and came back with a pint for each of them.

“Cheers,” John said before he raised the straight glass to his mouth and drank as the detective returned his salutation and drank rather more of his pint. Dutch courage, John thought and suddenly the thought of making small talk whilst Greg got himself wrought up to the point of talking about Sherlock revolted him; better to get this over with he decided.

“So, how is he?” John asked. While Greg was clearly surprised that John had been the one to raise the subject he didn’t at least try and pretend that he didn’t understand or that he didn’t know how Sherlock was,

“He’s a mess to be honest.”

“In what way?”

“Well,” Greg paused and took another pull at his drink while he marshalled his thoughts, “wherever he’s been these last two years it certainly wasn’t a health cure, I’ll say that. He’s about a stone and a half lighter, and who knew that was possible short of a skeleton? By the way he’s moving and the way he’s sleeping I would say that he’s been living rough most of the time...” John interrupted without looking up his gaze fixed on the half-pint he had remaining of his drink,

“It was his choice.” To most people this was said in an inflectionless tone, a mere observation, but Greg knew John Watson well and could hear the hurt,

“He didn’t feel that he had a choice.”

“He never does feel he has a choice when it’s something he wants to do, hence the drugs and the other stupidity.”

“No it really wasn’t like that...”

“What was it like then?” John asked, looking up. Even though he knew it was there Greg was startled by the anger he saw in John’s eyes, it almost eclipsed the pain that had been there unremittingly while they had all thought that Sherlock was dead,

“I don’t think I should be the one to tell you what’s been going on, I think you need to speak to Sherlock...”

“No.” The single word was said abruptly and with a cold certainty which again shook Lestrade. “I can’t talk to him Greg. If I let him speak to me I’ll be right back where I started from and I know I’ll be happy, ecstatic even, and I know that I’ll have to do all of this again. And it doesn’t matter whether I’d be doing it for real or if he just went off again, either way I honestly believe it would kill me to lose him again.”

“On the whole, people don’t die of grief. What kills them is being alone. You don’t have to be alone you could be with someone you love, someone who loves you...”

“Did he tell you? Yes, of course he told you, why would I have doubted it. Well?”

“Yes, he told me, it was the reason...” Greg sighed as he was interrupted yet again, thinking I’m never going to get a full sentence out tonight, am I?

“I knew it! I knew that was the reason he went, bloody, fucking bastard...”

“John! Pull yourself together, you’ve got it wrong. Will you for Christ’s sake let me finish a sentence?”

John was breathing fast and not far short of as angry as Lestrade had ever seen him but the doctor made an effort to calm himself, taking another pull at his pint before he looked back at him,

“Go on,”

“I was going to say, it was the reason he felt he had to go. John, please believe me, he did not want to go, he may have been wrong, but I can see why he thought he had to go and it had nothing, nothing to do with not loving you.”

“If he’d loved me like I loved him he couldn’t have done it.” John stated.

“If I go and get us another pint in,” Lestrade asked, “will you promise to stay and listen?”  
John nodded his assent and Lestrade went to the bar, giving himself time to marshal his thoughts. He knew that if he got this right then two people who ought to be together and happy would be and that if he got it wrong then he’d be lucky if either of them was around twelve months from now; the pressure of it made him want to run away.

Returning with fresh pints Greg sat down placing one of the glasses in front of each of them.

“Why did you join up?”

The question was so surprising that John answered without thinking,

“I was needed; people were dying, people I could help.”

“So you put your own life in danger,” Lestrade gestured in the direction of John’s shoulder, “to help people you didn’t even know. Is that right?”

“I suppose,” John ducked his head in embarrassment, “where is this going?”

“Stick with me. Who shot the cabbie Jeff Hope?” This was the last question that John had expected and he knew that he hadn’t reacted properly to it, but then again the fact that Lestrade had asked the question was enough proof that he knew the answer. Knowing he wouldn’t be believed he answered,

“I have no idea.”

“Of course you don’t,” Greg replied with the hint of a smile which John reluctantly returned, “whoever did that, did it to save another life or lives though, we’re agreed on that, aren’t we?”

“I suppose so,” John agreed with some reluctance, “you’re trying to tell me that Sherlock did this to save lives?” John looked directly at the detective and Greg was struck by how many of Sherlock’s mannerisms and speech patterns John had picked up in such a relatively short space of time, “No,” he continued, “it’s more than that, you’re saying he did it to save me.”

“Like I said, if you really want to know then you’ll have to talk to Sherlock yourself, but yes, that’s certainly what he thought.”

“I just can’t credit the fact that he didn’t realise what it would do to me to lose him.” John said in a defeated tone of voice. “I came really close to not being here when he came back. Really close.” Lestrade could see how much that admission had cost John and he reached across the table and clasped the younger man’s forearm briefly.

“You could have talked to me.”

“No, really I couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong I was not, am not ashamed of sleeping with Sherlock, it wasn’t anything I ever expected to do but I loved him and it was the right decision, but I couldn’t talk about it, even thinking about that night and the morning after was enough to leave me a shaking, retching mess. It’s stupid but I’d loved him for what seemed like such a long time and then it was over before it really got going.”

“Would it help you to know that he felt the same?”

“No. Yes. Oh god, I don’t know. I’m just so fucking tired...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter, I won't be moving the 'number of chapters' goal post again!


	7. Chapter 7

John slept. In his dreams he was back in the one room flat he’d had when he was first released from the hospital, back home to a place that no longer felt like home. He was sat up to the table with the desk drawer open to his right. And there was his Browning. And he couldn’t think of a reason not to pick it up. He was so tired and if he picked up the gun he wouldn’t be tired anymore, it would all go away. In the distance, like they were coming from outside he could hear voices, not to distinguish words but he knew that there were voices. Although he couldn’t make out the words he knew that they were trying to persuade him not to pick up the gun. Some of the voices, he knew, were important; he knew that he should listen to what they were saying, that he should focus on what the voices were saying but he just couldn’t, he was too tired and if he just picked up the gun he could rest. With a detachment that came from exhaustion he watched his own hand reach out to the Browning; he knew what it would feel like, after all it had become an extension of his own hand long before he was out of basic training even though its use was only permitted in self-defence. He woke shouting and sweating as his finger tips met the cold of the metal and the warmth of the grip.

Looking at his watch John could see it was hideous o’clock and although he was reluctant to try sleeping again, having no wish to return to that dream, today was the day when he was going to see Sherlock and he needed his wits about him and so he cleared his mind, and turned over to sleep again.

This time he was up high with the wind pulling at him, gusting and making his muscles tense to keep him balanced. The view was glorious; London bathed in a low slanting dawn light, everything sharp and clear before fumes thickened the atmosphere. John did not feel nervous about the drop in front of him; it was all far too beautiful. He heard rather than saw the person behind him.

“Are you all right?” and suddenly he was at the poolside again with Sherlock stripping the bomb vest from him, asking that same question and then just as suddenly he was back on the roof looking out over London.

“Did you know I only really began to appreciate London when I saw it through your eyes? It’s like you gave the city to me, all polished and glowing like it is now,” he gestured, “I remember thinking that as I left the flat that morning.” He paused. “It was just a place until I saw it with you and it became almost a living entity, with all its people like the component cells.”

“What would that make me?”

“A killer T Cell,” John answered immediately with a grin, “you can ‘see’ when one of the cells is being destructive to the whole and you swoop down and remove it. Lestrade is a helper T Cell, points you in the right direction, sets you off.”

“And you? What are you?”

“Me, I’m nothing,” John replied and stepped forward and woke up.

This time he decided that further sleep was actually going to make things worse and so he got up.

 

Sherlock didn’t sleep. He’d always been a poor sleeper, it was, he considered, a tedious way to spend time, but he had at least tried to sleep that night, he knew that he had just this one chance to repair things with John and the thought of what would happen if he failed had left him staring wide-eyed into the darkness of Lestrade’s flat. _What was that phrase of Lestrade’s? ‘Falling off the wagon in a suitably extravagant way’ that was it._ None of them knew, except possibly Mycroft, how close to that he had been before he met John, and before the thought of disappointing John became unbearable to him. _I have to face facts,_ he thought, _I’m probably going to be saying goodbye to him today, I’ve broken us beyond where we can be repaired. What the hell am I going to do?_ The answer came to him with a jolt that made him sit up and then stand up, unable to keep still. _I will have to keep going because if I don’t, if I do anything stupidly self-destructive even though I want to, John will think it’s his fault and I can’t do that to him; I can’t hurt him like that again. Oh, god, it’s a life sentence. But then I deserve it._

 

John had finally agreed to meet Sherlock at Lestrade’s flat, it was more or less neutral ground for both of them and he certainly didn’t think that he could be rational about Sherlock being back in Baker Street. He was aware that he was not so much walking there as marching but somehow it felt appropriate, he was going to deal with a situation, it wasn’t going to be pleasant but it needed doing. And then he could begin to build a new life, after all people have bad break-ups all the time and they grieve and they move on and they get back to a good place and he would do the same.

Lestrade answered the door almost straight away, like he’d been waiting for John to ring the bell and buzzed him in with a muffled, ‘Come straight up, John.’ John was aware he was straightening up like he’d been called on the carpet by his commanding officer, as he pushed the outer door open and marched upstairs. Greg had left the door ajar and John walked straight in to be greeted by the DI.

“Can I take your coat?” he asked

“No, thanks, but I’m not planning to stay long.” Lestrade looked slightly put out, but soon covered the expression over to one of neutrality.

“He’s in here.”

And John took one, two deep breaths and walked into the room.

Sherlock was stood, back to the window and the light looking directly at the door as John walked in; the sight took John’s breath away, and his prepared speeches evaporated like they’d never existed and all he had left was a gut reaction,

“Christ, Sherlock, have you eaten anything while you’ve been away?” The look on Sherlock’s face in response to this was so comical that Lestrade couldn’t but laugh, drawing the attention of both men.

“Sorry, sorry,” he spluttered, “I’ll just go and make some tea,” and he disappeared into the kitchen.

Sherlock desperately wanted to say something, anything, the right thing, to try and sort this whole stupid mess out, but he hadn’t a thought as to what that might be and in the end it was John who continued.

“Seriously, you couldn’t have taken care of yourself?”

“Never was one of my strong points, was it?”

“No, I suppose that’s one of the reasons it was so easy to assume you’d finally managed to get yourself killed.”

There was a pause in which mighty civilisations might have risen and then fallen or at least that’s how it felt to Sherlock, but finally he took a step towards John, hand out, he had to say it,

“Oh, god, John, I’m so s...” John interrupted him, cut him off with the same gesture that he had used in the cemetery.

“Don’t. Don’t apologise, there is nothing you can say that will make this last two years alright, nothing. I certainly couldn’t abide to listen to a meaningless apology, it’s hard enough being here. Just tell me where you were and what you were doing.”

Sherlock looked taken aback; this clearly was not what he’d expected.

“You want to know what I was doing?”

“Yes, I want to know what was so important and so secret that I couldn’t help or even know about it, I want to know what took you away from me.” John stood in front of him fixing him with the gaze which he’d used to keep squaddies in line, and Sherlock nodded slightly trying to marshal his thoughts, turning away from the window and sitting down on a stand chair by the table,

“It was Moriarty. That morning, the morning after...” Sherlock’s voice faltered and he looked up at John,

“Yes,” John snapped, “I know very well which morning.”

“He sent me a text, specifically threatening you, and I lost all ability to think rationally. That had never happened to me before, though it’s happened a few times since, it was like a high pitched wailing in my head.”

“What did the text say?” John asked and Sherlock thought he could detect a slight relaxation about the doctor’s expression,

“I can show you if you want,” Sherlock said, fishing in his pocket for his mobile phone,

“You kept the text?” John asked and Sherlock was afraid he could hear the same sort of revulsion in John’s tone that he had when they’d been arguing the utility of caring, he felt the need to defend himself,

“I kept everything about this ... case with me, I had to have everything at my finger tips, I’d never had so important a case as keeping you safe.” John shook his head at this, more like trying to dislodge something than a negation,

“Show me then,” he said holding out his hand for the phone. Sherlock pulled up the correct message and stood to hand John the phone. The message was there to be read, in black and white:

I will burn the heart out of you. Ciao, M.

“I see,” was John’s only response, but he did walk to the table and pull out the other chair and sit down. Sherlock was nearly overcome by having John so close after so long and as much analysis as he was able to persuade his brain into seemed to say that John sitting down and sitting down so close to him was probably the most hopeful sign so far, he almost began to let himself hope that things might be alright.

John was staring at Sherlock, intently, with his head slightly on one side. Sherlock could see he was thinking, no, more than thinking, deducing. Finally John continued to speak,

“What? He had surveillance on the flat?” Sherlock nodded.

“According to Mycroft a couple of small bugs and probably a parabolic mike aimed at the windows after we had them replaced.

“I suppose your theory was that if you were dead then Moriarty would have no reason to kill me, he’d have no audience.” Sherlock nodded in confirmation, impressed by how quickly John had seen this and then another pause spun out and Sherlock could tell that something was annoying the doctor. Eventually John continued, “It’s like I’m just a bit part player in your life, isn’t it, not even worth murdering if you’re not around to react!”

“That’s how Moriarty saw it, John, not me, you have to believe that.”

“Why? Why do I have to believe that? You seem to have thought that I could be left waiting to be called for later, and everything would be fine, I’d just be here keeping the home fires burning while the real men-folk were off fighting.”

“You have to believe that because you are the single most, the only important thing in my life. The only thing that could have, that did, drive me from your side was the thought of you in danger. It wasn’t even like Moriarty would just shoot you, a quick clean death, but you met him, it would have been a game, it would have been drawn out, there would have been torture, pain, humiliation...” Sherlock’s voice petered out and he put his head in his hands, and continued in a small subdued voice, “I couldn’t stand that.”

John thought that he had never felt so many emotions in such quick succession, it felt like his head was too full of conflicting ideas and feelings, twenty, a hundred different things going on and as soon as he tried to get a hold of one thing ten more things budded up drawing his attention. He started with a simple but important question,

“Is Moriarty dead?”

“Yes, and I took apart the rest of his organisation as well, we neither of us have to worry about that anymore.”

“Are there any police forces likely to come after you about this?”

“No.”

Then John took a deep breath and pulled at another of the threads, one of the threads that connected to the anger he still felt,

“You said you couldn’t stand the thought of Moriarty getting me, did you ask yourself what I could stand?” he asked quietly. Sherlock’s head came up quickly,

“What do you mean?” he asked, seemingly actually puzzled by the question,

“Did you think through what your death, because that’s what it was, I never had any doubts, would do to me?”

“Of course I did,” the younger man blustered, “of course I did.”

“Don’t see how you could have done. I know you must have cared about me,” Sherlock flinched at the use of the past tense, “otherwise the text message wouldn’t have set you off, but I don’t see how you could have thought about the effect of this on me and still faked your death like you did.”

“I was working under what was clearly a false assumption.”

“A false assumption?” The pitch of John’s voice climbed in incredulity, “What false assumption?”

Sherlock knew that he had to answer the question, if he tried to avoid it or worse if he tried to lie to John then everything would be irretrievably lost, but equally a truthful answer might do the same thing,

“I didn’t think you were that bothered about me.”

John had thought that he was angry before, but suddenly he felt real rage. He couldn’t stay sat down, he needed to move, he needed to punch Sherlock again, but he’d more or less promised Lestrade that he wouldn’t do that, so pacing and shouting would have to do,

“Fuck! That’s bloody ridiculous. For fuck’s sake, Sherlock! Bloody Moriarty knew from seeing us for ten minutes and listening in to a few conversations, but the great Sherlock Holmes couldn’t work it out when we were fucking? What did you want from me, Sherlock? I’d killed for you, for fuck’s sake, and I hadn’t known you a day then.” Sherlock glanced round at the kitchen door, and was interrupted, “Oh, he already knows, he’s known all along, was that something else you missed?” John took a deep breath and Sherlock could see the effort he was making to calm down, to stop shouting. When he had himself under control he continued,

“Explain to me how you didn’t know I loved you.”

Sherlock heard the past tense like slow poison and for a moment considered just giving up, what was the point of putting himself through this when everything was over, but just as quickly he knew that he had to do this for John, that it wasn’t about him, and so he started to try and explain,

“I don’t know if I can find a way I can say this without it sounding like I’m trying to play with your emotions but please believe that is not what I intend. It’s really a matter of experience, or more particularly my lack of it,” John interrupted,

“Can’t say I detected any lack of experience...” Sherlock was not able to keep the grimace from his face as he interrupted,

“Not the sex, that I had some experience of, what I’d never experienced and therefore didn’t expect was that anyone,” Sherlock cleared his throat, unable to select the right words, unable to convey how his brief time with John had been something so far out of his experience that he hadn’t been able to understand it as he should, and yet he had to try, “would have an emotional attachment to me, rather than just me to them.”

“So you’re saying that none of your other partners ever gave a sod? Is that right?”

“Yes. There really weren’t that many of them.”

“So, they were all like Sebastian?” John asked and Sherlock was astonished again by how quick to pick up on things John could be, how could he have known about Seb? Sherlock had to ask,

“How did you know about him?”

“It was kind of obvious; he had a proprietorial manner towards you. As a GP you see a lot of abusive family relationships and he fairly reeked of the sort of casual undermining and determined attacks on self-esteem you see from the abusive to the abused. Quite honestly I wanted to thump him.”

Sherlock felt stupidly like smiling at this, after more than two years it felt wonderful to have John spring to his defence again and then he had it or at least part of it,

“Oh!” he said, and again “oh! That’s one of the ways I should have known isn’t it? God, I’m stupid!”

Staring at John, wanting confirmation, Sherlock could see different emotions play across the older man’s face, the old look of delight in one of Sherlock’s deductions, anger and deep, deep sadness. The sadness was like a knife on Sherlock’s brain and he realised in that instant he would do anything to take that away even if that included walking away forever. But first he had to at least try to make things right even if it was a futile effort. As he watched, John slumped back into the chair and put his head in his hands. Sherlock reached across and clasped John’s upper arm and felt him tense to an alarming degree before a shudder went through every muscle and he began to sob. Without any thought Sherlock stood up and pulled John into his arms, holding him tight with the side of his face on John’s head.

“Please, John, please don’t cry. I’ll do anything, I’ll go and you’ll never see me again if that’s what you want but please, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. You’ll be fine, you’ll find someone who deserves you like I never did and you’ll be happy. I never would have done this if I’d thought for a second that it would make you feel like this.” John leaned into the embrace, unable for the time being to stop crying and Sherlock continued to try and sooth him, unaware by this point of what he was saying. Slowly John’s crying began to subside and he pulled away, ever so slightly from Sherlock, to look up at him,

“The reason I didn’t want to see you, the reason I punched you was that I was afraid what it would do to me again if you did this again or if you died for real and considering how little care you take of yourself that could happen anytime. I was trying to protect myself.” John turned his head again and Sherlock pulled him against his chest and held him there. John continued, “But I’ve realised that it doesn’t make any difference; it might kill me if something happened to you but without you I’m not much better than dead. If I sent you away, I’d just be dying sooner. Please, please Sherlock promise me you won’t do this again.”

“John, I’ll never leave you again. I don’t know how you’ve found it in you to forgive me, but you’ve always been so much more than I deserve, so much more than I ever allowed myself to think I might get.”

John looked up at him and clearly stated, “I love you, Sherlock Holmes.”

“And I you, John.”


End file.
